Overview

Europe's ""enlightened"" eras hid fangs sharper than any guillotine: Black Death's 1348 rampage stacking bodies like cordwood in London's lanes, priests anointing the dying while fleas feasted unchecked, turning taverns to tombs overnight. Inquisitors didn't debate-they dunked heretics in scalding oil or stretched limbs on racks till joints popped like bad bets, confessions spilling for the sake of a quick end. These weren't outliers; they were the continent's pulse, where a wrong glance at the stars could land you in a heresy hole, and survival meant stepping over the bloating dead without a flinch. Shift to the wilder fringes: Vikings didn't sail for silver alone-their axes cleaved monasteries at dawn, Lindisfarne's monks dragged from altars to become thrall fodder, sagas later romanticizing the slaughter. Roman arenas weren't games; they were abattoirs where lions tore Christians mid-prayer, crowds cheering the spray as emperors picked thumbs-down like sour grapes. Medieval famines pushed the unthinkable-neighbors eyeing neighbors over stew pots, whispers of ""long pig"" echoing from Irish cabins to German hamlets, a grim math when the grain gods got greedy. Twentieth-century echoes bite deepest: Ypres' gas clouds choking doughboys in yellow fog, trenches flooding with the drowned while rats grew fat on the fallen. Witch panics lit bonfires from Salem's shores to the Black Forest, accusations flying like arrows till the innocent twisted in ropes. This book's a creaky-floorboard tour through it all-facts that prove Europe's glow came from embers of the unspeakable, a reminder the past's monsters don't stay mummified.

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9783565083657

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